The present work is especially dedicated to those who would realize the duties of good citizenship and it is the hope of the writer that it may serve to deepen the sense of civic pride now happily being cultivated here. To foster this civic pride is the justifying reason why he has been induced by his friends to launch on a long and laborious task, sweetened though it may be by the pleasure anticipated of communion with the scenes and thoughts and deeds of a romantic past and a wonderfully progressive present. All history is profitable. Perhaps, however, civic history has not been cultivated sufficiently. The present work is an attempt to repair this by interesting Montrealers in their citizenship so that by placing before them the deeds of the doers of the past, they may realize they are dwellers in no mean city. We would hope that something of the spirit of love for their cities, of the Romans, Athenians, or Florentines, might be reincarnated, here in Montreal. Good citizenship would then be thoroughly understood as the outcome of a passionate love of all that is upright, noble and uplifting in human conduct, applied to the life of a city by which it shall be made beautiful and lovable in the sight of God and man. For this purpose the life story of any city that has reached any eminence and has a worthy past should be known by good citizens so that they begin to love it with a _personal_ love. For like each nation, each city has its own individuality, its own characteristic entity, its own form of life which must be made the most of by art and thoughtful love. This is not merely true of the physical being of a city from the city planner's point of view. There is also a specific character in the spiritual, artistic, moral and practical life of every city that has grown into virility and made an impress on the world. Every such city is unique; it has its predominant virtues and failings. You may partially eliminate the latter and enlarge the former, but the city being human--the product of the sum total of the qualities and defects of its inhabitants--it takes on a character, a personality, a mentality all its own. Civic history then leads us to delve down into the origins of things to find out the causes and sources of that ultimate city character which we see reflected today in such a city as Montreal. The research is fascinating and satisfactory to the citizen who would know his surroundings, and live in them intelligently with consideration for the diverse view points of those of his fellow citizens who have different national origins and divergent mental outlooks from his own. Yet while this city character is in a way fixed, still it is not so stable but that it will be susceptible to further development in the times that are to come with new problems and new situations to grapple with.